Devout christians and psychology???

Maybe I'm missing something, but how is it possible that people who actually have degrees in psychology, and are always studying and reading about how the mind works are also devout Christians? I would think that if you knew enough about psychology, that you would see religion for what it is..please explain this to me.

I just don't understand how a person can have a passion for understanding why people believe/think/feel certain things, and not see that their own religious beliefs stem from peoples' fear of death/ceasing to exist and the desire to control peoples' lives. These are people who PRIDE themselves on understanding the way the mind works, and at the same time, they believe in a literal heaven (streets of gold, mansions, and other things that we mere mortals here on earth value when "gods ways are higher than ours"), hell( fire, brimstone, burning for all of eternity), and the literal truth of the Bible in it's entirety (no matter how incredibly unscientific it's claims are).

I have never understood this conundrum, Laura. Also, I have never understood how someone in mental health could read the story of Abraham and not recognize that he was a classical Paranoid Schizophrenic,but I know many in the field that don't.

I think Freud was an atheist. As I read your question, a number of things come to mind. I have always suspected that some of our species are more "hard wired" to cling to religious beliefs. Psychologists now say that when faced with unknowns, the human mind attempts to create a framework to explain it. So to me it would follow that even faced with overwhelming proof that the earth is not 6,000 years old, and that snakes don't talk, and that the concept of original sin and the subsequent blood sacrifice of god to himself is kinda ridiculous, not knowing there is a safe place to go when you die is just too much to handle for some people whether they are psychologists or not. So being a psychologist or studying psychology may be secondary to being rational enough to handle the unknown. Fear my trump knowledge for some. Add to that the fact that many have significant investments in religion. They were introduced to it at an early age by family members and role models. The concept of "biased assimilation" explains how people screen contradictory information. Some may not want to rock the family boat. My daughter studied psychology and she doesn't believe at all. I questioned it all when I was about 12 and in catholic school.